Monthly Archives: October 27, 2015

Welcome to my fifth annual Halloween reading list! These titles are not technically horror, as I can’t really abide horror. Gives me nightmares. I promise, though, that they are all eminently readable, with elements of the macabre that make them appropriate for this most deviant of holidays. If you’d like more, check out my previous posts from 2011, here and here, 2012, 2013 and 2014. I typically try to include a classic, something for younger readers, and more current titles. This year it is a mix, with two classics, a series of graphic novels, a series that may or may not be YA or Middle Grade, depending on the reader, but which is delicious for adults as well, and three current titles. I cannot recommend highly enough The Library at Mount Char. It is my spotlight title of the year, so far. There’s still time to get your hands on some of these and settle down with a spooky read for Halloween!

Pride and Prejudice with Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Graham-Smith
I have stated in a previous Halloween article that I didn’t like zombies. When this took off a few years ago, I kind of ignored it. But recently, I’ve been inundated with Jane Austen references: I’ve reviewed two books about her and her work for Library Journal, and I’ve found numerous articles online that I just happen to come across. I also have not read all her works, but I have read Pride and Prejudice. I often confuse it with Jane Eyre, but Wuthering Heights was always my favorite of that ilk anyway. I think that I will have to round out the oeuvre soon, but what they did here was just cheeky enough to be taken seriously. The reimagined scenes may grab your attention, starting with the riff on the famous opening line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” Hey, that’s what happens when things go into public domain.

Sandman by Neil Gaiman
I’ve been reading these for a couple of years. Okay, yeah yeah, you probably know all about this series. I simply can’t believe that it took me this long to find it. I discovered Sandman when I went to my first Con. I already knew that I liked Neil Gaiman, on the basis of The Graveyard Book. And I heard all this raving about Sandman. What’s the big deal? Oh, it’s only perhaps the most imaginative re-telling of the crowd of deities and/or Undead that actually control our fates. I love Death – she’s a badass. I love the Sandman himself. I love the rules and how they are broken. Beware, this is a long haul. It’s a series of 15 graphic novels that were published in the 90s. Oh, if only I could go back and read these without all the clutter of all the derivative stuff that’s been published since then, that I thought was original. Again, Gaiman is a, well, he wouldn’t want me to call him a god. Let’s just say he’s utterly breathtaking. And Sandman is spellbinding. If you cannot find this or the idea of a graphic novel turns you off, try Good Omens. Co-written with Terry Pratchett, it is a delightful dystopian, complete with demon child.

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
This book is full of so many inventive ways to kill someone, so much blood and gore, that actually about halfway through I kind of became immune to it. The story was so good that I just glazed right over all that baking alive, all that torture, all the explosions and so on. I just wanted to find out what happened. The reason I thought this would be appropriate for Halloween, though it’s not strictly horror, is that the premise is that there is this one man, one supreme being (though, to his eternal irritation, he did not create the Earth), who is capable of creating life from death, who can manipulate time, who works from ash and dust, and through most of the story, he’s missing. Just what would that be like, then? It’s fascinating. What’s even better is what happens at the end. And then, of course, there’s the Library. I have talked to this author on GoodReads and he promises no sequel. So savor this one. Not quite sci-fi, not quite fantasy, it’s a speculative fiction feast.

Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series
by Ransom Riggs
The final book in this series has just come out (Library of Souls), which as we know is a godsend when starting a series. You don’t have to wait for the new one! I had heard of this when it started, and it kept cropping up on my radar, so with the release of the third book I thought I’d check it out. It was a great series. I found it fairly imaginative, and unique in that it incorporates vintage photos into the story. Each photo is of a character in the book (or each character is modeled after a vintage photo). There are so many twists and turns in this series that you will never, never guess how it finally ends up. I loved Jacob and Emma, and even some of the creepy “bad” guys, like Sharon, who shows up in the final book. I also loved the imaginative peculiarities of the children, the way Jacob grows and changes, and the very real conundrum that he finds himself in. This whole series kept me up late, and was just creepy enough. I think that this would be appropriate for younger than YA on up. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Hollow City

The Uninvited by Cat Winters
This is her first novel and she has the endorsement of none other than our own Wendy Webb, so how could I resist? Actually, I found Cat on Twitter and she mentioned that ARCs were available of her novel, so I went for it. This was not as creepy as I thought it would be. The main thrust of the story is women empowering themselves, in various ways. It’s a nice historical, dealing with World War I, the Spanish influenza, and women’s place in society. It does have a creepy vibe now and then, with the Uninvited Guests of the title, which are the dearly departed that our main character sometimes sees. So if you like women’s fiction, this would be a great Halloween read.

Gossamer Ghost by Laura Childs
I loved the setting of this, and the craft aspect of it, and the two main characters, best friends who are out to have fun. And there were enough dead bodies and dangerous situations to make this a slightly scary cozy mystery. If you want to take a quick trip to New Orleans, and get to know a gal who is making her way, with a hunky detective boyfriend to boot, check this out. Bonus that this is set during Halloween season, so we do get a bit of dressing up, a masquerade ball, and a parade.

The Shadow of Ashlydyat by Mrs. Henry Wood
I’ve not been able to find a copy of this, but it was recommended in a story with a list of scary titles. It is an old title, written in Victorian times. If perhaps you come across it, I would love to hear an opinion of it! I don’t expect that it would match up to current titles in terms of fright but I have seen it mentioned as a seminal book of the genre. The fright factor early on tends to be more on the psychological side rather than the gore evident (for example, Dracula).

Note: I won’t often do book reviews on this blog, but I have pulled this from my Examiner column, as I couldn’t bear to break the streak. I will no longer be writing there as the Minneapolis Books Examiner. Check back soon for news of my all-new all-books blog!

You may have heard that in certain circles (largely academic), you must publish or perish.

Well, isn’t the same thing true of any writer? And if you are primarily a writer, and not, say, one who concerns themselves with the esoteric functions of some industry or industrial complex, then you really must publish or perish.

Submit or die

And what do you need to do first, before you can publish? That’s right. Submit. So really, it’s Submit or Die. And that can mean several things.
You can submit your work to journals, websites, contests and the like. Or you can submit queries to agents, publishers or magazines to publish your articles. Really, the how or what doesn’t matter (I mean, yes, ultimately it does matter), because the bottom line is that you must submit something in order to get started.

There are many people who write and do not submit. They exist in a netherworld of anonymity, known as writers only to themselves and close friends and family (and sometimes, not even that). Sometimes, they think they are not good enough. Sometimes, they don’t think their work is ready or they say they simply don’t have time. There are as many reasons for not submitting as there are writers out there.

But the end result is that only those who submit get published. And those who talk about writing but do nothing about submitting are doing a disservice to their writing.

“So I played softball in high school for four years and utterly sucked at it. Like I was embarrassingly bad. That said, I stuck with it. Something about that practice of persistence in spite of continuous failure *read rejection letters*, has fully prepared me for my life as a writer. Thank You, Softball” – Sagirah Shahid

Recently, I saw a post by a poet friend on Facebook, telling how her experience with being bad at softball – but sticking with it – helped to prepare her for life as a writer. She graciously agreed to let me share it. Resiliency. Gotta have it.

But sometimes it’s easier to do other things, and no one will really notice, right? Well, that’s where a support group comes in. Encouragement and accountability might be the things you need to get yourself on a submitting track.

There are some who say that a true writer must write every day; but also some who say that you should just write whenever you can – but above all, make time for it. I have belonged to two groups over the past 9 or 10 months that have helped me do just that. They both offer Encouragement and Accountability. But no judgment.

The first one that I joined, and I would suggest everyone do this, goes along with the principle of writing every day. It is a monthly writing challenge, centered around a hashtag on Twitter, and I wrote about it here. The second one is a Facebook group that operates on the make-time-for-it option, called #1kTuesday, run by the talented and generous Molly Beth Griffin. Both encourage writing and have another thing in common: no judgment. We all have our demons. But we can still celebrate our successes, even the smallest ones, because small successes tend to pile up to be big successes.

Facebook group #SubmitSunday

What I would like to do is build up a similar kind of encouragement aimed at submissions. I will do this more on the model of #1kTuesday, with a Facebook group and a hashtag. I am calling it #SubmitSunday – though in reality there will be no penalty for submitting on other days. The idea, though, is that you will know as you are spending some time on a Sunday morning, afternoon or evening working on submissions that there are others out there doing the same thing. Make time for it.

And when you are done, you can head on over to the Facebook group and enter your accomplishment. I will ask anyone who is a member of the group to submit each Sunday (or any day) what they did, then I will tally them every Monday. It could be “Submitted to x number of journals,” or “Submitted “so-and-so” piece to x journal” or it could be “Worked on a proposal for a writing grant/residency for one hour.” It could even be “Researched markets with x resource for an hour.” It’s okay to do research, but Extra Brownie Points will be awarded for those who are actually submitting work, and who can name the piece and pass along the market that they submitted to.

Occasionally I will share resources that I know of and trust, and I would encourage others to do the same – places where markets, contests and grants are listed that others will find handy. I always share this kind of information with my students and it is nothing but a good feeling. If you are an editor of a publication or director of a program that awards grants or residencies to writers, I would love to see you post the details in the group or simply with the hashtag on Twitter. Open reading periods, deadlines for contests, requests for proposals – all is game.

I have already started the Facebook group, so please join #SubmitSunday. You don’t have to be a Friend of mine on Facebook, and you can invite anyone you want. Also, use the #SubmitSunday hashtag on Twitter (follow me there at @LindaWonder if you don’t already), and tell your friends! I hope that you can join me!

I have been teaching classes at the Loft Literary Center for about five years now, and there is something that I always run into. These classes fall on the career side of things – how to promote yourself, how to build an online platform, how to use social media, how to find speaking opportunities, that type of thing.

Invariably, in any one of my classes, as we go around the group and do a little pre-class discovery, the same thing crops up. At least one person – and usually more than one – will indicate that the project they are working on, having written or at least hope to promote does not really qualify them as a writer. They always start out by saying, “I’m not a writer, but I wrote this book… “ Maybe it is a collection of stories their grandfather told, maybe a memoir about their childhood, maybe it is a series of essays on living in the northland. One woman collected and edited 2,000 of her mother’s letters, wrote introductions to each chapter, footnoted the whole thing, collected photos (including getting permission where necessary) and then told me she wasn’t a writer.

My response to them is always the same. “You are a writer. Get over it. Own it.” I feel like they will not make great strides in promoting their project until they take ownership of it and realize that it came out of their own head. Never mind that it was a collection of letters, or stories someone else told them on the front porch, or just a little column that they scribbled for the weekly newspaper. It’s all writing – fiction isn’t the only thing that counts – and I want them to accept that.

I have always written, and I have always self-identified as a writer. I always saw myself sitting at a desk writing. There was never any doubt that my career would have something to do with writing. But then, it often did not. I wrote copy. I wrote press releases. I wrote tons of blog posts, social media posts, and articles. Still, that’s writing. Except when someone asks what you do, and you say you are a writer, and their question is always, “Would I have read anything you’ve written?” And the answer is well, no, not unless you’ve read the Cold Weather Rule brochure for the Public Utilities Commission, or the many press kits that I’ve written over the past several years, or perhaps the series of job search posts I wrote over the span of a year and a half for a careers blog. And no, they hadn’t.

Still, I couldn’t blame them. Because I knew there was something else in me, something else brewing. I just didn’t know what. Imagine my surprise when I finally started writing a big project, and it felt like I was butting into the club.

The Writing Challenge

Oh sure, I’d taken my stabs at writing a novel. I had started several when I was younger. I even tried to write a play once. I did NaNoWriMo in 2009, and barely got half way before I realized that the inane dribble I was spouting was going nowhere. I just wasn’t feeling it. I always maintained that I was a poet and essayist first.

Then this past April, I did a blog post challenge. I wanted to kickstart this blog, and it was somewhat helpful in doing that. But most of all, what it taught me was that if you are going to write, and you need to write every day in order to write, then you had better make it a priority, and you had better do it first thing. And it’s helpful to have support, accountability, and check-ins. So that’s a great lesson learned.

Still, I didn’t have an idea for that great novel. Then one night I stayed up late to watch a show on PBS on one of my favorite topics – ancient peoples. This one was about a series of discoveries just made in the last couple years, of Neolithic villages in the north of the British Isles. At the very end, the host made a comment and used a phrase that seared itself right into my very brain. I watched the end of that show with my mouth hanging open. I knew that I had a story.

I thought about it for a few weeks. Then I saw the August Writing Challenge hashtag (#AugWritingChallenge) on Twitter (there are other months, too, just check the website). I went to the website and read the whole thing. It was already August 1, and I didn’t have time to write anything that night, so I started the next night. I had already written the opening scene (or at least the first scene that came to my mind) on a legal pad. I typed it out. I typed some more. I got over 1000 words that first day. And I’ve been loving it ever since.

Giving Yourself Permission

The idea is to write at least 500 words a day, every day, for the whole month. There is an online participation log, and shout outs on Twitter. I love the log. I get to see all those numbers marching across the row, for every day I have written. There are a few zeros on there, but there are far more that are over 1000 words, and I know it will take a while, but it feels great. And the shout outs are really sweet, too. What better for someone sitting alone in a room with the blinds drawn on a summer day?

And now, hey. Guess what? I’m writing. I’m writing nearly every day. I’m writing this novel, and I’m writing blog posts for this poor neglected blog, and articles on my Books column on Examiner.com, and things that I have long promised to other people.

But sometimes, when I post my word counts on Twitter with the hashtag, I still feel like I’m play-acting a little bit. Like maybe those ‘real’ authors out there are going to somehow call me on it. I fall into the old trap: “I’m not really a writer, but I wrote this book.”